Television in Turkey

First national channel TRT 1

Television in Turkey was introduced in 1952 with the launch of ITU TV. The first television broadcast work carried out as closed-circuit television broadcast in Turkey was prepared in June–July 1966. The first national television channel in Turkey was TRT 1, which was introduced in 1968. In 1972, TRT broadcast its service exclusively to Ankara four nights a week, yet viewers in border areas were enticed by TV channels from neighboring countries. Sophisticated antennas were installed in Istanbul before the start of TRT's service in the city, aimed at Bulgaria, the closest country that had functional signals.[1]Color television was introduced in 1981. Turkey's first private television channel, Star, began broadcasting on 26 May 1989. There was only one television channel controlled by the state until the wave of liberalization in the 1990s which began privately owned broadcasting.[2] Turkey's television market is defined by a handful of large channels, led by Kanal D, ATV and Show, with 14%, 10% and 9.6% market share, respectively.[3]

The two most used reception platforms are terrestrial and satellite, with almost 50% of homes using satellite (and 15% of those pay for services) by the end of 2009. Three services dominate the multi-channel market: the satellite platforms Digitürk and D-Smart and the cable TV service Türksat.[4]

As of 2013, pay television services in Turkey include Digiturk, D-Smart, TeleDünya, Vodafone TV, Turkcell TV Plus, Türksat KabloTV and Tivibu.

The Uzan Group launched the first digital television transmissions in Turkey with Turkey's first television channel, Star TV. They also launched Star Digital on Türksat in late 1999. In 2003, the platform's name was changed to DigiFun Club, but the name change was short-lived.

Turkey's first pay television provider, Cine5 from MultiCanal (owned by Erol Aksoy), launched in late 1994. It held the rights to the latest movie premieres, series and especially sports such as the Turkish Football League. In 2000, CINE5 launched CINE+Digital on Turksat with some specialty channels, but this platform was taken down in 2003.

As of 2020 there are 30+ FTA HD broadcasts with all popular and 5 TRT channels are available digitally by satellite and cable.

Digiturk

The logo used on Digiturk platforms after 4K broadcasts started.

Digiturk, owned by the Çukurova Group, was launched in 1999. Digiturk has the rights of airing the main sports live coverage in Turkey with its channel Lig TV. Digiturk is transmitted to the air via the Eutelsat 7 East satellite with the usage of the Türksat 42 East satellite. Digiturk recently launched HD channels of itself such as Lig TV HD, MovieMax HD, Eurosport HD, National Geographic HD, SporMax HD and İZ HD.

Digiturk was endowed to the BeIN Media Group in September 2016.[5]

Küçük Çamlıca TV Radio Tower is the tallest structure in Istanbul.

Turkey's planned digital terrestrial television on 28 August 1998 at Bilkent University. Ankara Dikmen 1,5 kW DVB-T transmitter started test broadcasting on 1 December 2003.

Turkey began digital transmissions in February 2006. The Turkish government was expected to gradually handle the switchover, with a completion date of March 2015. In 2013, the broadcasting regulator awarded a license to a firm; this was cancelled in 2014 after the AYM upheld a complaint against the process.[6] New licenses have been proposed, but as of 2018 Turkey still has no DTT network.[7][8]

However, with the construction of a new "digital" transmitter in Küçük Çamlıca TV Radio Tower and Çanakkale TV Tower, digital broadcasts finally began testing in 2020.[9][10] There are plans building up to 40 more transmitters around the country.[11]